


Lay Your Hand On Me One Last Time

by Scrawlers



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers 4 speculation, Drama, Gen, Iron Dad & Spider-Son, Post-Infinity War, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 02:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14582610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrawlers/pseuds/Scrawlers
Summary: Those who were erased by Thanos were brought back for one last chance during the final fight. And Tony Stark knows one thing for certain: There is no way he is ever letting Peter Parker die on his watch again.





	Lay Your Hand On Me One Last Time

**Author's Note:**

> I saw Infinity War this past weekend and, much like everyone else who saw Infinity War, I have been severely emotionally compromised. As a result of being severely emotionally compromised, this came to me, and while I don’t ordinarily write for this fandom (and as such apologize if anything or anyone seems off as a result), I had to get this out of my head.
> 
> I wrote this primarily for the dialogue that came to me, and as such I don’t have very much set-up for how it came to be. My thought, though, is that this is set during Avengers 4, after whatever happens to bring back those that Thanos dusted, but before Thanos himself is defeated. I was kind of picturing the first battlefield mentioned to be something like Titan, but then the second one is some ruined city . . . so honestly, you can imagine the battlefield however you want while reading this. Like I said, for me, it was primarily about the characters involved.

It was the kid’s scream that got his attention.

It was one of those things, you know—one of those clichés. Stories about how parents developed a sixth sense after their kids were born. Well, Tony didn’t have any kids. He wanted them. Or at least, one really good kid. He’d said as much to Pepper, before all this. Had dreamed about it, and it had felt so real. There was probably a reason for that, more than just his dream, but Tony didn’t like thinking on that too hard. It didn’t do him any good to think on it too hard.

But one second, he was picking himself up out of the rubble he’d been thrown into face first, F.R.I.D.A.Y. letting him know that his defense systems had sustained serious damage and she was struggling to get them back online, and the next second all he heard was the kid’s scream, and all he saw as he whipped around so fast he was sure he gave himself whiplash was the kid being thrown fifty feet before he slammed straight into a concrete pillar, and crumpled in a heap at its base. And fifty feet in front of the kid stood Thanos, having just thrown him clear across the battlefield, and there stood Thanos as he took aim—

No.

_Not again._

It was one of those things—one of those clichés, but it wasn’t until he registered F.R.I.D.A.Y. saying,  _“I will not be able to restore your defenses in time!”_ that he realized he was flying across the battlefield, pushing his suit’s jets as hard as they could go. F.R.I.D.A.Y. was yelling, and he couldn’t blame her; he probably would have been yelling, too, if he was in her shoes and someone else was in his. But that didn’t matter—he couldn’t think about that. All he could think about was the fact that the kid was so stunned he could barely pick himself up from the base of the wall, much less look at the satanic Grimace about to wipe him off the face of the universe,  _again_ , for the  _second_ time.

_No. **Not again.**_

That was all he could think about. That was all that was running through his head as he bolted hell for leather across the battlefield.  _Not again, not to him, **never again.**_ He remembered what it felt like to have the kid clinging to him, squeezing him like a lifeline that wouldn’t,  _couldn’t_ work no matter how badly Tony wanted it to. He remembered each breathy squeak in the kid’s voice as he pleaded, saying that he  _didn’t want to go_. And he remembered the sticky coating of ash across his fingers, and how it didn’t smell like anything—about how it had been, save for cries echoing in his head and the agonizing, empty throb in his arms, like the kid had never existed at all.

 _Not again. **Never again.**_ He would never,  _ever_ let that kid die again.

So he flew. He flew across the battlefield with F.R.I.D.A.Y. and common sense both screaming in his ears. He flew like one of those cheesy, dramatic scenes out of the one too many movies the kid loved referencing every time they met. He flew, and just as Thanos fired, he threw himself over the kid, his palms in the dirt on either side of him.

For a split second, everything was white hot, roaring fire. And then, it was calm.

**\- - -**

Peter knew where he was. For a—for a time, for most of the time he was there, he knew where he was. And where he was, at least, for one second, was careening through the air after Thanos used his own web— _his own web!_ —to fling him. Then he hit something really,  _really_ hard, and fell, and pieces of  _something_ fell on  _top_ of him because he’d hit whatever he’d crashed into with enough force to break it, and after that, he—

He knew where he was. He was lying down. And there were pieces of something on top of him. But for a second (or several), that . . . that was all he knew.

He opened his mouth, to say  _ow_ if nothing else, but all that escaped was a crackling gasp. He tried to push himself up, but it was hard to breathe, and in the next second he was coughing hard enough to hack up at least half his internal organs. So, that hurt. A lot.

“K-Karen?” he sputtered, because she—Karen—was key. Karen could fix whatever had happened. And if not, she could at least tell him  _what_ had happened. “Karen, what—um, what—?”

 _“You flew fifty feet and collided with a concrete pillar,”_ Karen said, and while it really was the pain that was making him wince, Peter thought that  _hearing_ it said—or at least hearing it said like  _that_ , so  _bluntly_ , even if Karen  _was_ just being informative and helpful—made him cringe, too.  _“You were briefly stunned, but you don’t appear to have suffered a concussion or any fractured bones. Do you feel all right?”_

“Yeah,” Peter grunted, and he gritted his teeth as he pushed himself up on his hands and knees. For not having any fractured bones, everything still  _hurt_ enough. “Thanks, Karen.”

_“Any time, Pete—”_

Two things happened very quickly.

The first was that something—some _one_ —crashed . . . not  _into_ , but  _over_ him. His Spidey-Sense kicked in before the rest of his brain had time to catch up, and Peter flattened himself back against the base of the concrete pillar as that something—that  _someone_ —flew over and threw their body over him like a shield. In the next nanosecond there was a flash of radiating heat—and as he felt the heat wash over him, and screwed up his face in response even though his mask was protecting him, he thought that maybe he had  _heard_ that blast being fired, right before someone had shielded him and the heat wave came. He had heard it, but he hadn’t  _registered_ it because he had been too busy thinking about Karen and his not-fractured bones.

But in the next second, it was over. And Peter opened his eyes as ringing silence echoed across the battlefield and the heat faded, and found himself staring up at—

“Mr Stark?”

It was. Peter was lying half on the ground, half up against the concrete pillar, and Mr Stark was leaning over him, one hand on either side of Peter, shielding him from . . . whatever had just happened. His helmet was gone, and when their eyes met, Mr Stark grinned.

“Well,” he said, his voice strained, “that . . . that was a close one, kid.”

“Y-Yeah,” Peter said. He pushed himself up into a better seated position as Mr Stark pulled back, but although Mr Stark had straightened as if he was going to sit—or even  _stand_ —up himself, he hadn’t moved two inches before his face contorted in a pained grimace, and he fell to the side. “Mr Stark? What—?”

Peter’s voice died in his throat.

Mr Stark had braced himself against the ground with his left arm. His right—

He had his right arm wrapped around his stomach, and that—that wasn’t exactly right. It wasn’t his stomach, exactly, that was the issue. It was—whatever had happened, whatever attack had landed, it—most of the Iron Man suit around his torso had been disintegrated. Parts of it remained, smoldering scraps of metal, some of which (Peter felt his stomach lurch) looked as if they were melted together with his undershirt onto the skin beneath. But the destroyed suit wasn’t the problem, or at least, not the main problem. The main problem was the gaping wound in Mr Stark’s abdomen, and all the blood spilling out of it, spilling over his hand and onto the ground, even as he tried to hold it all together.

Peter ripped his own mask off and put his hand on Mr Stark’s shoulder, even as Mr Stark pulled away just enough so he could roll onto his back.

“What—it’s—it’s—it’s—it’s okay, we can—we can fix this,” Peter said. Mr Stark kept a hand over the bleeding wound, but there was so much—there was too much—Peter fumbled with his web fluid, but his hands were shaking, and he had never used it to bandage an injury this severe. And forget his hand; his  _everything_ was shaking, his own  _breathing_ felt shallow, and shaky, and not enough. How was he supposed to think if he couldn’t breathe? “We can fix this, Mr Stark, we can, we can, we—we—”

He looked up for—somebody,  _anybody_ , anybody who could possibly come help, but the sounds of fighting were so far away, now. Distant sirens, distant crashes, even distant screams, and there was no one in sight. No one. Not even the wizard.

“Hey. Kid.  _Kid._ ” Peter’s attention snapped back to Mr Stark, who was thankfully still conscious, looking at him,  _talking_ to him. “Focus. Look at me.”

“I am. I am,” Peter said. He put his hand on Mr Stark’s arm again, and left his other hovering just above the wound. “Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. I’ll do it, I will, I’ll—”

“Relax, kid,” Mr Stark said, but his voice was strained, and in the next second he coughed and he cringed again, a little blood dribbling over his lower lip. Bleeding from the mouth meant injury to internal organs, meant— “It’s . . . gonna be okay.”

 _No,_ Peter thought, but what he said was, “Yes, sir. So what—what do I have to—?”

“Get . . . get to Banner. Find Banner. He’ll . . . he’ll look after you,” Mr Stark said, but more quietly this time. He had closed his eyes; his breathing was even, and that—that was a good sign, wasn’t it? It wasn’t ragged, or at least, not  _that_ ragged, and he— “And . . . can’t believe I’m . . . but . . . Cap. He’ll help you.”

“O—Okay,” Peter said, his brow furrowed. “And then I—I’ll just bring them back here, right? And—”

“No,” Mr Stark said, and Peter’s fingers constricted around his arm. “You’ve gotta . . . gotta take out Thanos, and . . .”

“But what about you?” Peter demanded.

It wasn’t funny, but even though his face had lost much of its color, and his eyes looked a little unfocused and were half shut, the look Mr Stark gave him  _still_ looked impatient. “Kid . . . I’m—”

“No,” Peter interrupted, and he shook his head. “No, no, I’m not leaving.”

Mr Stark scowled. “C’mon—”

“No!” Peter couldn’t help the way his voice cracked any more than he could help the sudden stinging in his eyes, or the way his throat burned. He was—it was stupid, it made no sense, but in that second he almost wanted to  _hit_ Mr Stark, to hit him for saying—for even  _suggesting_ — “I can’t just leave you to—to—I’m not just gonna leave you here! I can help you, we can fix this!”

Mr Stark closed his eyes, and swallowed. “Not this time.”

“Yes, this time! I—”

“Listen to me.” Mr Stark reached up, and grasped Peter’s shoulder, tugged him so that he was leaning just a little bit closer. He took a ragged breath, and Peter could tell by the tautness of the muscles in his jaw that he was using every ounce of strength he had to say this in one go. “What’s important right now is that you get to the rest of the team. Find them, stick with them. Understand? And when . . . when this is . . . all over . . . you go home to May. Go home, and hug May. Got it?”

“Okay,” Peter said, and he swallowed thickly. “But you’re . . . you’re coming with me. We’ll go find the others together, and—”

Mr Stark patted his shoulder once, then let his hand fall. “Wish I could, kid.”

“You can,” Peter whispered. “You can, you—!” His voice broke, and he took a shuddering breath as the tears he could no longer hold back spilled down his cheeks at last. “Why—why’d you do it? Why’d you—you didn’t have to do that, you could’ve—could’ve stayed—!”

Despite everything, Mr Stark huffed a short laugh. “Well . . . can’t have a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there’s no Spider-Man, can you?”

Peter opened his mouth to answer—to say something,  _anything_ —but no sound came out. Mr Stark seemed to take that as a response, anyway; his smile fell, and he turned his eyes away from Peter.

“Look,” he mumbled. “I don’t . . . when my dad—when that . . . it stuck with me, for a long time. Never . . . never really went away. And I don’t . . . don’t want you to . . . think, or to doubt . . .” He took another shallow, shuddering breath, and then looked Peter in the eyes as he said, “I’m proud of you, Peter.”

Peter needed to say something. Something—Something to explain to Mr Stark how much that meant to him, how much  _he_ meant to him, how much all of this—everything he had done—how important he was, and how much Peter cared—

But when he opened his mouth to say that—or at least to say something  _close_ to that, a “thank you” if nothing else—all that came out instead were heaving, broken sobs.

**\- - -**

All things considered, the fight could have been going worse.

It also could have been going much better.

Natasha crouched behind a shattered wall that had once been a building, taking advantage of the temporary cover to catch her breath. It wouldn’t last; Steve, Thor, T’Challa, and Strange were doing what they could to hold Thanos back, but they hadn’t been prepared for him. They had thought they had more time. They had  _needed_ more time, but he had appeared out of nowhere, and—

She gave her head a sharp shake. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that they recalibrated and neutralized the threat as best they could. She touched her fingers to her headset. “Sam, you got a visual?”

 _“You know it,”_ Sam said, and despite everything, Natasha couldn’t help but smile. After all that had happened, there weren’t enough gods in any universe she could thank for the fact that she was able to hear his voice again.  _“But I’m about to go in to help Steve. Bruce is heading your way.”_

“You gave him my position?”

_“What, was I not supposed to?”_

Natasha rolled her eyes, but she was still smiling. “No, it’s fine. Thanks, Sam.”

He didn’t answer, but then, he didn’t need to.

Natasha rolled her shoulders to work the stiffness out of them, and pulled both guns from her holsters. This wasn’t the best plan they had, but it would have to work. It was all they had. Once she met up with Bruce, she—

She  _felt_ the presence before she heard it, but it was the sound of a soft  _thump_ behind her that caused her to spin, both guns raised and at the ready, safety off and hammers back. Her guest reflexively raised both hands in a defensive, surrendering position, and Natasha felt the tension drain from her shoulders.

“Peter,” she said, but after everything his name was more a sigh of relief from her lips. She lowered her guns, and when she did, he dropped his hands. “Not very smart to sneak up on a former spy like that.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, and his shoulders sagged. It was an amazing how, even in his full spider suit, he could still manage to look like a scolded puppy.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, but she would admit that she wasn’t paying full attention to him anymore. Instead, she scanned the sky, sure that if Peter was here, there was no doubt his watchful guardian wasn’t far behind. But the sky was empty, save for the smoke and dust of battle; there was no sign that anyone had ever flown there. And when she lowered her eyes back to ground level, the only man—boy, really—she saw standing before her was Spider, not Iron. “Where’s Tony? I thought he’d be with you.”

The second the name  _Tony_ left her lips, Peter recoiled as if she  _had_ fired at him. He was fully suited up; his mask hid his facial expression from her view. But she didn’t need to see his face to notice the sudden stiff set of his shoulders, or the way he balanced on the balls of his feet as if prepared to run. She didn’t need to see his face, either, to notice the way he was trembling.

Her blood suddenly felt cold.

“Peter?” she pressed.

This time he took a half-step back. He still hadn’t said a word, but to her eyes, every bit of him was screaming that he was about to run, and that was all the answer she needed. She closed her eyes.

It wasn’t right. And it wasn’t fair. But there was also no time to deal with it now. Later—she could think about it, and  _feel_ it, later. But now, right now—right now they had a world to save. They had people—Tony included—to avenge. And there was a sixteen-year-old boy standing in front of her that Natasha would bet her own life Tony gave his to save, and she was not about to let that be in vain if she could help it.

She needed to focus. Everything else could come later.

“All right,” Natasha said, clearing her throat. “First thing’s first. We—”

“Where’s Thanos?”

Natasha blinked, caught off-guard by his sudden interruption. He no longer looked poised to run, but for some reason, that didn’t make her feel any better.

“Fighting Steve, Thor, T’Challa, and Doctor Strange about four blocks northeast of here,” she said slowly. Peter nodded and turned away, and as he did, she asked warily, “What are you planning?”

Peter paused, quiet for a moment, before he asked, “Did you ever see that really old movie  _The Princess Bride_?”

Natasha furrowed her brow. “Yeah?”

Peter nodded, and then took aim at the rooftop of an adjacent, and mostly still in-tact, building.

“Just consider me Inigo Montoya,” he said, and was gone before she could stop him.


End file.
